Seamus Heaney Quotes

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Irish Poet

Born: Apr 13, 1939

Died: Aug 30, 2013

Ireland Life Poetry Sense Think You

Related authors: Eavan Boland John Millington Synge Oliver Goldsmith Patrick Kavanagh Thomas Moore William Allingham William Butler Yeats

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained. Seamus Heaney

Hope You Out Hopes Dashed Maintained Even Started

I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself. Seamus Heaney

Think Rather Like Territory Feminine Ireland Itself Ground

The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination. Seamus Heaney

Feelings Imagination Sin Faking Against

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. Seamus Heaney

Write whatever you like! Seamus Heaney

You Whatever Write Like

I always believed that whatever had to be written would somehow get itself written. Seamus Heaney

Whatever Would Somehow Had Written Always Itself Get Believed

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it. Seamus Heaney

Relationship You Slightly Poetry Mysterious Always Wonder Your

The experimental poetry thing is not my thing. It's a programme of the avant-garde: basically a refusal of the kind of poetry I write. Seamus Heaney

Kind Poetry Write Refusal Experimental Avant-Garde Thing Basically Programme

My father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children. Seamus Heaney

Entitlement Mother Father Sense No Sense Had Children

In poetry, everything can be faked but the intensity of utterance. Seamus Heaney

Everything Poetry Intensity Utterance

My father was a creature of the archaic world, really. He would have been entirely at home in a Gaelic hill-fort. His side of the family, and the houses I associate with his side of the family, belonged to a traditional rural Ireland. Seamus Heaney

The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God's sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them. Seamus Heaney

God Behavior Sense Took Superfluous Seemed Given Aristocrat Unspoken Sake Were Itself Just Them Persuasion Granted Code Speech

One doesn't want one's identity coerced. Seamus Heaney

Identity Want

I feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy. Seamus Heaney

Art Myself Writing Joy Sense Community Something Only Part Feel Irish Movement Being Moment Whole Actual Deepest Thing

If you go into an underground train in London - probably anywhere, but chiefly in London - there's that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don't exchange many pleasantries. Seamus Heaney

You People Sense Ghostly Dimension Entering London Exchange Almost Underground Still Go Very Train Chiefly Quiet Anywhere Many

A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious. Seamus Heaney

Cautious Ireland Person Northern Northern Ireland Naturally

I've been in the habit of helping people. Seamus Heaney

People Habit Been Helping Helping People

If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness. Seamus Heaney

Life Poetry Arts Anything Fortify Your Inner Inner Life

The day I entered St Columb's College, my parents bought me a Conway Stewart pen. It was a special afternoon, of course. We were going to be parting that evening; they were aware of it, I was aware of it, nothing much was said about it. Seamus Heaney

Poems that come swiftly are usually the ones that you keep. Seamus Heaney

You Poems Come Swiftly Keep

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